https://archive.vn/OCAUB washingtontimes

Mark Zuckerberg paying for election operations, vote counting across U.S.

By James Varney - The Washington Times Thursday, October 29, 2020

Facebook magnate Mark Zuckerberg and his wife gave a nonprofit $400 million to pay election workers, train poll workers and rent polling locations for the Nov. 3 vote in various states.

The Zuckerbergs’ largesse is an unprecedented private expenditure on a process long held to be an exclusively public operation and has spurred at least nine lawsuits challenging the effort by the Center for Tech and Civil Life.

The Center for Tech and Civic Life, which was established in 2015, received $300 million from Mr. Zuckerberg’s wife, Priscilla Chan, on Sept. 1 and then another $100 million on Oct. 13, according to the center’s press releases.

Among the group’s top directors are three people who were previously cyberspace operatives with the liberal grassroots group New Organizing Institute, according to the nonprofit’s website.

https://archive.vn/xqKxJ dailymail

Mark Zuckerberg tells his staff that Biden won the election - even as disinformation about the result of the vote spreads on Facebook

By Harriet Alexander For Dailymail.com 06:55 GMT 13 Nov 2020 , updated 08:18 GMT 13 Nov 2020

While Trump has talked tough about harsher regulations on Big Tech, accusing social media platforms of censoring conservatives, his administration has taken little concrete action. 

Russo's tweets are among a number of signs that a Biden administration will take a harder line, pursuing Democrats' opposite complaint that social media companies don't delete enough material that they deem questionable.

His chief operating officer, Sheryl Sandberg, and his wife, Priscilla Chan, have both posted congratulations to Biden and Vice President–elect Kamala Harris.

24 Nov 2020: Zuckerberg applies Facebook's secret "break glass" banlist:

https://archive.vn/lVFJB nyt

Roiled by Election, Facebook Struggles to Balance Civility and Growth

Employees and executives are battling over how to reduce misinformation and hate speech without hurting the company’s bottom line.

By Kevin Roose, Mike Isaac and Sheera Frenkel Nov. 24, 2020 Updated 12:07 p.m. ET

SAN FRANCISCO — In the tense days after the presidential election, a team of Facebook employees presented the chief executive, Mark Zuckerberg, with an alarming finding: Election-related misinformation was going viral on the site.

The change was part of the “break glass” plans Facebook had spent months developing for the aftermath of a contested election. It resulted in a spike in visibility for big, mainstream publishers like CNN, The New York Times and NPR, while posts from highly engaged hyperpartisan pages, such as Breitbart and Occupy Democrats, became less visible, the employees said.

Some employees argued the change should become permanent, even if it was unclear how that might affect the amount of time people spent on Facebook. In an employee meeting the week after the election, workers asked whether the “nicer news feed” could stay, said two people who attended.

https://archive.vn/qM6xM politico

Biden’s white guy quota By ALEX THOMPSON and THEODORIC MEYER  | 12/11/2020 06:29 PM EST

BIDEN TRANSITION QUIETLY BRINGS ON FACEBOOK, GOOGLE EMPLOYEES — When the Biden transition team released the names of hundreds of personnel on Nov. 10, there were zero current Facebook or Google employees among them. That’s changed — the transition website quietly added four Facebook and Google employees to its agency review teams on or close to Thanksgiving, the hawk-eyed STEVEN OVERLY noticed. All four continue to work at their companies while on the transition administration:

— ZAID ZAID, a Facebook public policy official, joined the State Department and International Development teams.

— CHRISTOPHER UPPERMAN, a Facebook manager, was added to the Small Business Administration team.

— RACHEL LIEBER, a Facebook director and associate general counsel, now sits on the Intelligence Community team.

— DEON SCOTT, a Google program manager and alum of Obama’s Homeland Security Department, will serve on the DHS team.

Silicon Valley critics have pressured the incoming administration not to hire people with ties to the tech industry to senior posts, particularly individuals associated with Facebook and Google, which are fending off massive antitrust lawsuits. There are a number of former Facebook leaders already in top positions on the transition.

The transition told us that they “have regularly updated our agency review team lists to allow members access to the federal agencies in preparation for the incoming administration.”

A HUNTER SPECIAL COUNSEL? Biden’s pick for attorney general may be tasked with overseeing the prosecution of Biden’s son. That is just one of several possible scenarios that could result from the ongoing federal investigation into HUNTER BIDEN, JOSH GERSTEIN tells us. It also raises questions about the incoming Biden Justice Department that the transition team isn't answering.